creepypasta

After the pattern of copypasta, substituting creepy for copy. Originated from 4chan’s /x/ (paranormal) board sometime around 2008. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹiː.piˌpeɪ.stə/, /ˈkɹiː.piˌpɑː.stə/, /ˈkɹiː.piˌpæs.tə/

creepypasta (countable and uncountable, plural creepypastas)

1. (Internet slang) Frightening urban legends and short stories in the horror genre, circulated on the Internet.
   • 2010 November 14, “Bored at Work? Try Creepypasta, or Web Scares”, in The New York Times, Austin Considine:

     The video is part of a growing phenomenon making its way around message boards and e-mail chains called “creepypasta” — bite-sized bits of scariness that have joined the unending list of things-to-do-when-you’re-bored-at-work.

   • 2012 September 14, Kaz Scattergood, “Spooked by Slender, Fuse (Sheffield Students' Union)”, in magazine‎, volume 9, number 49, page 2:

     The game was born from the familiar 'Slenderman' image, which you may or may not be familiar with from internet memes and creepypasta horror stories.

   • 2013 September, “Huntsman: The Orphanage”, in Adventure Lantern‎, number 46, page 7:

     " […] Listen to the nineteen personal creepypasta-style stories to piece together the mysterious events of that fateful night in 1898, when twelve orphans simply… disappeared!"

   • 2013 November 14, Joey Dussault, “The 10 Best Original Soundtracks In The Gaming World”, in Tastemakers Magazine (Northeastern University)‎, number 33, page 11:

     The eerie “Lavender Town” theme has infiltrated the nightmares of an entire generation of children and has even inspired one of the most well known “creepypastas” on the Internet.

   • 2015 August 24, Lisa Miller, “Slender Man Is Watching”, in New York Magazine, page 62:

     A friend pointed her to Creepypasta, a collection of user-generated horror fan sites in which written, Photoshopped, and videotaped accounts of encounters with monsters and supernatural evil are presented as “real” in the form of encyclopedia entries, testimonials, and other “documentary” evidence.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:creepypasta.

• scarelore

• → Polish: creepypasta
• → Spanish: creepypasta

Unadapted borrowing from English creepypasta.

• IPA^(key): /kri.piˈpas.ta/
• Rhymes: -asta
• Syllabification: cree‧py‧pas‧ta

creepypasta f

1. (Internet slang) creepypasta (frightening urban legends and short stories circulated on the Internet)

• creepypasta at Obserwatorium językowe Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego

Unadapted borrowing from English creepypasta.

• IPA^(key): /kɾipiˈpasta/ [kɾi.piˈpas.t̪a]
• IPA^(key): /kɾepiˈpasta/ [kɾe.piˈpas.t̪a]
• Rhymes: -asta
• Syllabification: cree‧py‧pas‧ta

creepypasta f (plural creepypastas)

1. creepypasta

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.